1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to imaging, and, more particularly, to a method of selecting inks for use in imaging with an imaging apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally, within the printing industry, three or four inks have been used for printing in various printers. A three-ink printer typically employs cyan, magenta and yellow inks (CMY). A four-ink printer typically adds black ink to the basic CMY system to achieve deeper shadow tones. Black is designated “K” and therefore the CMY system becomes a CMYK system with the addition of black ink. Such three and four ink printers produce red (or orange), green, or blue color by overprinting two of the color inks on top of one another. The gamut of overprinting colors available to a given printer is restricted by the properties of the color inks and may not meet the demands of very high quality printing. Recently, printing systems with additional ink such as red (or orange), green, and blue, or any combinations thereof, have been developed for high fidelity (hi-fi) color printing. These inks, such as CMYKRGB or CMYKOG, are often referred as hi-fi color ink sets (wherein the CMYK inks are basic inks, and the RGB inks and OG inks are high fidelity inks), and the printing system that utilizes such inks is known as a hi-fi or high fidelity printer.
In a high fidelity printing system, emphasis has been traditionally directed on enlarging the color gamut of the system by using a greater number of inks, and overprinting more inks for a given color. As printing speed increases, however, problems arise, such as mottling due to shortened drying time. This problem would also occur even on a non-hi-fi printing system, given that the printing speed has been at least doubled compared to two years ago. As technology advances, the printing speed will continue to increase. This requires the hi-fi ink mixing technology to change in order to accommodate higher speed printing, but without generating visual artifacts.